A Journey of Growth at Illumiti

Illumiti has its origin in Hebrew (?????) - “to light up”. ?The name is distinctly similar to the motto of my alma mater which is “let your light shine” (?? ???? ??? ?????). If Illumiti had any specific meaning beyond being a distinctive name for a brand, joining Illumiti brightened my career.

In Q4 2021, I was blessed with multiple job offers. I decided Illumiti, a SAP Platinum Partner would be the place for me to grow in the SAP ecosystem as a Cloud Solutions Project Manager.

• Being responsible for leading the implementation of SAP cloud ERP solution targeting the midmarket segment, I was positioned to become the go-to project manager for the mining clients.

• Opportunity to work with amazing clients in the mining (gold, silver, uranium, potash) and semiconductor industries.

• The team culture within the Business ByDesign team at Illumiti was ultra-positive and highly collaborative. We were all fractionally resourced working on multiple projects at any given time. In addition, the consultants also supported AMS tickets for clients that were already live in production. The solution architects were also handling demos for presales. Nevertheless, everyone in the team wanted to see every SAP implementation to be successful.? They always went above and beyond to help each other. We tackled challenges head-on and celebrated monumental wins together! This team at Illumiti was always the A-Team – they were go-getters and supported each other!

Angeline Hazel Henry Arthi Raja Weilin ‘’Alan’’ He Arun Siva Barry Wallace, MBA Beatriz Alejandra Hernández Marlon Romero Sahil Babbar Siddarth Khanna

I wore several other hats at Illumiti.

1. Less than one year later, I was promoted to Senior Project Manager.
2. Within a year and a half, I had the opportunity to serve as the Acting Project Director, backing my Senior Project Director for 4 weeks as she recovered from her medical surgery.

I was continuously invested in by my leadership team.

I received consistent feedback from different Vice Presidents:

Whenever there was a difficult client we had to work with for the ERP implementation, I was the go-to Project Manager.

• I was once asked to take over an ongoing project that was already midway and in crisis, replacing a SAP project manager with 20 years of SAP experience.

I did not manage projects. I owned them. I celebrated the project team. I took ownership if the client was unhappy.

This is how I am described by Clients, Cross Functional teams, Account Executives and Project Directors 2023 – 2024:

• You are?competent, calm, honest and fair. (Cross-functional team member)
• We are indeed fortunate to meet and to work together! (Cross-functional team)
• The appreciate is on my end sir. Thanks for the?dedication?you put in over the last few weeks. (Account Executive)
• Thanks so much for?getting this done?yesterday. You both are?rockstars. (Account Executive)
• Thanks for?helping?us out! (AMS Director)
• You are absolutely?the?BEST! (Senior Project Director)
• This update is?incredibly updated. You have done an?incredible job. (Senior Project Director)
• Thanks Vijay…..love your format (Senior Project Director)

Project teams often shared that I was one of the best project managers they’ve worked with.

In addition to my role as Senior Project Manager, I also had the opportunity to be part of the Presales Scrum process, supporting the Leadership Teams (C-Suite) from Sales, Delivery and Solutions. I updated the scrum board with high data integrity, identified bottlenecks, worked with Project Directors and Account Executives to determine the sequence of events and the latest status, interlocked to identify the solution architects for the demos, all of the background efforts which are required to convert an opportunity in the pipeline for that sales cycle to become an Illumiti client.

• I treated this Presales Scrum as an informal mentoring platform for me to observe and learn through the discussions of the actual decision-makers in the company. To highlight the profound wisdom in this room, I would like to share this learning:
• A VP wanted to know who was the best architect we have in the company for an upcoming demo. While names of SAs were being shared based on module expertise, a VP of Sales shared her thought “The best architect would be a person who is a very good storyteller combined with the technical skills. This combined skill is what an SA needs to help the client see the merit of SAP and help us sign deals!”

• Responsible for being the guardian of the BYD Mining SharePoint site template that housed the project process documentation and the methodology. Several of my project management templates and documentation formats were tailored to become a part of the official templates within the BYD PMO and shared with the other project managers.

• Opportunity to work with the wonderful folks from Beyond Technologies (a Syntax company).
• Planned and facilitated the knowledge transition for Previan (Eddyfi), a S4 client from Beyond Technologies which was already in production to 22 Illumiti AMS consultants.

• Been a key part of the Illumiti BYD team and the internal preparation to pivot to the S4 Hana Public Cloud.
• I was all set and prepped with Activate Methodology, working out the functions of the SAP Cloud ALM tool, ready to be deployed for an S4 Hana Public Cloud project.

Illumiti was acquired by Syntax. Syntax is a portfolio company of Novacap, a Montreal-based private equity firm.

Company mergers play a great role in their growth, bringing together technologies, services & product offerings and benefiting overall competitiveness in the industry.

There are two sides to this coin.

Mergers have a bittersweet chemistry.

The week of the leap year in February was my last day at Illumiti.

I am proud of all the things I have accomplished, but most importantly, what I hold with high regard and value most are the relationships I have earned and fostered with colleagues and clients.?

• Sincere thanks to all the consultants, solution architects, integration leads, account executives, project managers and colleagues across the organization with whom I have had the privilege of collaborating.
• My gratitude to the Leadership Team, VPs and Project Directors.
• A shout of thanks to the amazing clients - your success is my celebration.
• Thank you Illumiti for the transformational experience and I am grateful for the growth opportunities.

I would like to thank Laura (Becca) Widner and Donna V. Dodson, PMP for interviewing me and for the opportunity to work alongside at Illumiti.

Cherishing my time at Illumiti (now Syntax), I flip the page to move on to the next chapter of my professional journey.

I am excited for my next big adventure!